He might have been in the palm of God’s hand, but it was his father that put him there. His father made sure that he had the tools and the mindset to help God keep his miracles hidden. They say that God helps those who help themselves. Officer Knight’s father made sure that young Todd Knight was able to help himself.

Sadly, giving an 11 year old unsupervised access to a gun is illegal in North Carolina. This story is another reason we need to repeal that stupid law.

The rest of the video has a good discussion of Castle and Stand Your Ground laws.

This audio appears to be prior to the shooting. Listen to her after she starts talking to the Black Mountain PD.

“He’s broken into my house, it’s the middle of the night, he’s, I don’t, he’s threatening my daughter, I ran out of the house.”

So we can conclude that the shooting has not yet happened by the fact that she says “he’s threatening my daughter.” Not “he threatened my daughter,” but she used the present tense. Also, given that she said she ran out of the house, this means that she would have had to re-enter the house to actually shoot the guy.

Now you and I are probably on the same page here. Momma can shoot anyone who messes with her babies. I don’t think that’s actually written in the law, but there are certain moral principles that we all can agree on and this is one of them. Unfortunately, this is a case where a person left a safe place and returned to a fight and then shot and killed a person right in front of his daughter. The gun control fanatics, if they were consistent, should be screaming bloody murder.

They insist that you should retreat if there is any way you can, and failure to retreat is grounds for murder charges. Look at how they treated the Martin/Zimmerman shooting. Because Zimmerman walked into the situation, the gun grabbers want to strip him of his right to self defense.

What is going to save this woman from the tender mercies of the justice system? NC Castle Law. In this law anyone forcibly and unlawfully entering an occupied home, car, or business is presumed to pose an immediate threat of death, serious bodily injury, or sexual assault to the persons within. The fact that he was the ex-husband doesn’t cut any ice here in NC. He was not authorized to be there and he forcibly and unlawfully broke in, so the law treats him no differently than if he was Jack the Ripper.

Mom was outside, but the daughter was not. The daughter was entitled to presume that her father represented an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury. (though hopefully not sexual assault) In North Carolina, anyone is authorized to use deadly force to protect anyone else who is authorized to use deadly force. In this case, Mom could shoot Dad in order to protect the daughter even though Mom was not herself in danger. Indeed, even if Mom put herself in danger by re-entering the property. Dad, however, having been engaged in an unlawful act was not allowed to use force to defend himself. Because the daughter could have used deadly force, legally her mother could use it to protect the daughter.

Keep this in mind. Those who demand retreat in all circumstances would prosecute this woman for going back into the house. They will demand proof that the attacker posed an actual threat to the daughter’s life. They will demand to see a weapon, or at the very least to see medical records showing that the daughter was beaten so badly that she was teetering on the edge of life when she got to the hospital. They will claim that there was no need to end the life of the father “just” because he broke into the house and started wailing on his adult daughter. This is the legal regime that the opponents of Castle and Stand Your Ground are demanding that we live under.

Personally I don’t care if you’re Freddy Kreuger or Mother Theresa. If you break into my house, I’m going to put bullet holes in you. And then I’m going to sue your estate for the cleaning bill.

I posted about a guy in Des Moines who spent about 4 months in jail waiting for trial in a self defense shooting. They stuck him with such a huge bail amount that he couldn’t possibly pay it. He was evicted from his apartment and everything inside was put on the curb to be stolen. He got exactly the sort of treatment you’d expect in a state that doesn’t have a Castle Law.

Here’s your chance to give him a little something to get him back on his feet.

Here’s a lesson for you. You don’t know who that person is. Leave them alone if you can. If they approach you, leave if you can. If all else fails, pull out your legally carried handgun and end the threat.

Here’s a golden oldie from the blog world. This post on Sebastian’s site is almost a year old. That makes it 45 in blog years. Sebastian talks about the three different situations where it is moral to kill another person.

1. Within your own house during a robbery.

2. Outside your house to stop a forcible felony.

3. Outside your house during a “sudden affray.”

Most people agree that a person has no duty to retreat inside his or her own house before using deadly force. Apparently English Common Law said that just the act of burglary was sufficient reason to send the robber off to his earthly reward.

The argument comes in once you go outside your house. Are you required to retreat from an attacker before using deadly force? The reason for the argument, according to Sebastian, is that most people forget to differentiate “forcible felony” from “sudden affray.” If you are attacked for no reason by a robber, rapist, or murderer, using deadly force to stop this person is both saving yourself and helping society. If you get involved in a fight and kill your opponent, you are not benefiting society.

One can imagine a situation where you might be involved in a consensual fist fight with someone. Can you pull out a knife to win the fight? No. You were probably wrong to get into the fight in the first place; killing only compounds your error. What if you are in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury? In order to demonstrate your innocence to the law, you must attempt to back away from the fight. This is why the “duty to retreat” exists. It demonstrates that you are not the aggressor, and you are trying to reclaim your status as the attacked. Engaging in a fist fight in the street is bad behavior, but if you try to break free and your opponent will not let you, you still have the legal right to protect yourself. You just have to prove to the court that you had stopped participating in the fight first. This is the reason that you are not allowed to pursue a purse snatcher down the street with a gun. When the robber is no longer a threat to you, you may not continue to attack him.

Most people never learned that there is a distinction between being attacked in the course of a forcible felony and deliberately engaging in a duel. This is why there is a duty to retreat in one case and why there should not be in the other.